


Strange Loyalties

by redfiona



Category: Rome
Genre: Gen, Plotting, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-15
Updated: 2008-04-15
Packaged: 2017-10-07 16:26:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redfiona/pseuds/redfiona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there was one thing the plotters could not understand it was the strange loyalty of Octavian's Praetorian Guard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Loyalties

Author: Red Fiona  
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, their long dead bones do. The particular iteration of these characters belongs to HBO, with the exception of the narrator, who, unnamed though he is, belongs to me. No money is being made from this.

Rating: G to PG, there's a plot against an emperor but that's about it.  
Characters: Octavian, Titus Pullo, various plotters.

~~~~

The one thing the plotters could not understand was the strange loyalty of Octavian's Praetorian. They were hard-faced men, determined, dangerous, and possibly even valiant, in the right circumstances. They couldn't be threatened, because they couldn't be scared, and they couldn't be bribed, damn Octavian and his ability to pay them an excessive wage that they couldn't afford to match.

Beyond that, there was the problem where there was a good chance that neither tactic would work because of aforementioned strange loyalty. If Octavian were a fighting man, it would at least make sense, but his great victories were all Antony or Agrippa's doing. Some of the men might be loyal to Agrippa, who was, his blind spot concerning his great friend excepted, a good man and fit to inspire said loyalty. Conspiracies before theirs had tried to convince him to stand up to Octavian and claim the Consulship. The conspirators were normally told, politely, no, and were then arrested before they could arrive home. They had decided not to approach Agrippa.

But for some of the others, the Rome-born men, it wasn't Agrippa they stayed loyal to Octavian for, but the legend of the last true man of the Thirteenth Legion. While he watched Octavian's palace, he sometimes saw a man, twisted with age, a snowy white head atop gnarling limbs; he visited Octavian about once a fortnight. This was the famous Titus Pullo, dictator of the Aventine, controller of the Collegia and for reason unknown to this particular plotter (being as he was from Barium and not this degenerate whore-house of a city), it's his patronage of Octavian and not the other way round (people don't notice the plebeians, so they certainly don't notice a half-broken old man who comes to the backdoor of the house) that keeps Octavian's guards so loyal. He asked the Roman patricians that he worked for once, who this Titus Pullo was. They shrugged and asked their other sources, who did their work well. Son of a slave, he crossed the Rubicon with Caesar, dashed about on various campaigns and became, through a series of violent and not entirely clear events, leader of the Aventine Collegia. Not bad for a man who'd been due to die by gladiatorial combat.

Exactly why Rome's excessively moral leader would have anything to do with a convicted murderer was a matter entirely unknown to anyone, but the second half of this particular story about Pullo (it was only one of many, and if even half were true, then the Gods must have loved him) made it clear why the Praetorian Guard loved him. To accept your death at the hands of gladiators without a fight was either ignoble cowardice or bravery of the highest measure, but to fight to defend the name of your legion and for a fellow Legionnaire, a centurion no less, to come to his aid, well it spoke of loyalty and devotion and all the other things that the Guard were supposed to believe in. They believed in a twenty year old story and they kept Octavian's peace for him.

Which was all well and good, and obviously Pullo was a great man, but it made him another obstacle that would have to be gone through.

~~~~


End file.
